Time Out Of Mind
by Thalaba
Summary: While the American Secret Service may have crumbled from religious superstition and fear, Britain's Shadow Parliament has never faltered in it's protection of crown and country from any infernal force. Now it needs one of their 'undesirables' to return.


**A/N:** This is really a crossover, with Brigitte being brought into a modern League (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). There are a ton of references to other movies/characters, but Ginger won't be playing much of any part in this. If that's not your cup of tea, understood. You should probably go look at something else then.

**1**

She had finally stopped examining how they had tracked her down in that lone shack—(Brigitte wouldn't give that pile of lumber more credit than it deserved)—in lower Pennsylvania. Barbed wired and signs had diverted all but the most desperate or sickening of the human populace, only three transients having disappeared in the five months since the werewolf had settled in for the winter. She had been prepared for several eventualities: other werewolves obviously; psycho prepubescent girls that had haunted her dreams for over a decade; Pam. So when the model-tall blond with a sword and the _fire_producing redhead arrived with the spring thaw, Brigitte Fitzgerald was knocked off kilter to say the least. Like a stalker they had timed their arrival with her latest dosing, leaving her no energy to chase them off her property; they stayed to explain there was another life out there for her—not so much better or even safer than her present situation, but a life where she could use her abilities to help others and not have to keep looking over her shoulder for lone males that wanted to procreate. After a brief discussion they carted her intoxicated ass off on a private plane set for jolly old England. But she had finally stopped examining the 'how' and was currently giving eagle-eyed focus to the 'why'.

The armoured van moved surprisingly smoothly along the narrow side road, night having settled heavily in this little traversed section of Derbyshire. (_"No one lingers there any longer," the creepy doctor who had been introduced as the brains of the operation tried to explain. "You see Brigitte, over two hundred years ago there was a rather interesting occurrence. Speak with Shaun—" the short balding Englishman who thought he was funny. "Apparently it is a cycle in which these Brits have become accustomed."_) The blond, Kiddo, drove with an easy confidence, her skin-tight ensemble covering more than it exposed on her thin frame. The vampire slayer—and Brigitte had never thought she'd say **that**in a real life situation—sat shotgun, appearing bored, but the werewolf knew better; the short, raven black hairs on the back of her neck were up and Seth Gecko was on edge, smelled of it.

"The turn-off's coming up, sweet cheeks."

"I'll have no qualms in relieving you of that other burdensome hand, Ash."

The muscled, one-handed engineer, with a deep chin cleft and chainsaw, (_"Who carries a fucking chainsaw?" "Ask all the bodies I've left behind, baby."_), had done nothing but flirt and annoy since they'd left the immeasurably large underground facility beneath the British Museum, and while Beatrix seemed to take it all with quiet good humour B had no doubt the blond could and would use that Hanzo sword with extreme efficiency—not that the born and bred Prairie woman knew anything about Hattori Hanzo, but it damn well was a source of vicious argument between Kiddo and Dr. Lector. Brigitte remained silent in the seat behind Seth. They had given her a gun and a few lessons on how to use it, but she felt more like a sacrificial lamb compared to the other three: sword and chainsaw notwithstanding, the tattooed slayer was armed to the teeth. Belts of bullets filled with holy water and silver—(_"I don't take chances with my own neck"_)—all attached to two automatic hand-helds that he treated better than he would children. For all her twenty six years of non-maternal living, Brigitte hoped the man didn't have any kids. They didn't expect her to have to use it though. Lector expected her to Change.

Brigitte had long-ago learned that her monkshood was no cure. When the full moon rose and the wolf wanted out, there was no stopping it; all she could do was lock herself into the cold cellar—a necessity of any property she acquired—and hope for the best. The monkshood was a deterrent for any protracted urges. It was a comfort. But the idea that B could Change at the drop of a hat, like some circus act, was insulting not only to the years she'd lived in solitude but to herself as a human being. (_"My dear, you are not a human being. Why is it that so many refuse to embrace the monster within when it will grant such advantages." Both she and redheaded Charlie shared brief knowing looks at that non-question._) And why a werewolf was important in catching a vampire no one would explain.

The Pemberly estate was a poorly kept construct of columns and timbre. As the foursome left the van and looked up at the three stories B was hit with the thought that no self-respecting vampire would hide out in this shit hole, but Seth was already moving forward and there was no time to debate the personal tastes of the undead. The vampire they were searching for was old but reportedly immobile.

"Doc's notes say she's ensand—ensoon—"

"Ensanguinated," Brigitte offered bluntly, resting a palm against what once must have been an elaborately decorated entranceway, now dotted with mould and other substances. "It means she doesn't have any blood in her." B rolled her eyes at the older man's expression. "I read, jackass. Get over yourself." Kiddo was already searching the main level, her stealth useless fighting against their echoing voices and Ash's heavy step. Brigitte would have felt sorry for the woman if she hadn't kidnapped her.

"Whatever ladies," Ash hauled a threadbare curtain off it's rod, coughing as an explosion of dust rained down upon him and waving his one flesh hand in front of his face. B backed up, wondering if there could be any asbestos involved. "Are we looking for a skin sack or a skeleton?" Seth snorted.

"Could be a bit of both. Vampires aren't pretty."

Brigitte didn't say anything to this, having learned from Charlie that Seth had lost his brother to a vampire set-up years ago. (_"He'll bring it up to argue a point and make you look like an idiot," the redhead had spoken with equal parts sympathy and irritation. "It's a sore spot for him; just try to remember that he's really good at staying alive."_) That assumption was put into question when the slayer kicked open a large double set of doors, guns drawn and apparently looking for a fight.

"Are you insane?" Brigitte's voice hissed across the filthy marble floors and particulate-filled air. Was she the only one to have ever watched a horror movie? Forget the vampire for just one fucking second, with all the noise they were making they were bound to attract all sorts of other creatures she had only recently learned actually existed. She was the damn noob here! Her jeans were suddenly too tight, her coat too heavy, and all B wanted to do was run, her flight or fight response spiking. It was impossible though. They had implanted a tracking device. Somewhere. "She won't be up here anyway. It's the basement. It's _always_the basement."

"Agreed." Kiddo's succinct tone cut, all eyes turning to where she stood down one hall beside a nondescript servant's door, sword drawn and pointed towards a bundle that, on closer inspection, was a combination of dust bunny and bones. Rat bones. Brigitte could see a trail coming from the foyer now that she was paying attention. "Seth?"

"You and Ash stay up here in case of ghouls—"

"Ghouls?"

"Puppy here and I'll go down to find sleeping beauty."

Brigitte gifted the smirking man with a glare that showed she'd love nothing more than to shove him down the dark winding staircase, until she realized that Ash and Kiddo were watching her with similar expressions.

"Fuck you," she muttered. "As far as I'm concerned **I'm** the most trustworthy person here." That seemed to break the tension, Kiddo's mouth curving in an understanding smile. For a woman who had never quite grown into her nose it only enforced B's first thoughts about the _League_, that for a secret international government body it was chock full of pretty white people with problems.

"What if there's a coffin?" Ash scratched his head with his metal wrist cuff. There were grooves where his chainsaw or various other paraphernalia could attach. "Or this bloodsucker is eight hundred pounds? How are you getting her up?"

"I think we'll manage," Seth accepted a flashlight from the other man and shone it down into the darkness, the yellow light waving back and forth and illuminating unusually wide steps but not much else. His tanned visage turned to her sallow one, mocking. "New girl's stronger than she looks. Ain't that right Brigitte."

"Start walking asshole." She cocked her chin towards the possible abyss—and from Ash's abundant tales of demons it could well be an abode of the damned—knowing that if she took offence at everything the bastard said she would never hear the end of it. They passed the first ten steps with Ash's warning following after. Deadites. Who the hell named these things?

**2**

"Is this part of the initiation or will there actually come a time when someone will tell me what the hell is going on?" Brigitte extracted a string of cobwebs that had snagged onto her long lank black tresses, the dust and residue disturbed by Seth's and her movement after what must have been decades of absolute stillness. She wasn't unclean, far from it; sometimes a good wash was all that kept her sane, waking up with blood in mouth and under her nails and no memory of the night before. But up-dos didn't cover pointed ears or curtain eyes that changed colour on a whim. As with her monkshood, B liked her security blankets.

"What's to tell?" Seth was moving cautiously but steadily forward. Unlike Ash or even his own display upstairs, Seth's steps were sure but silent. He wasn't turning his head around to talk or distracting himself with thoughts of how many spiders may take offence to their unannounced intrusion. Brigitte didn't feel distracted. She felt like kicking someone. "You were there for Lector's lecture." B pretended she hadn't heard that. No way this man was that witty.

"I meant the organization, you dick. Shadow Parliament. _The League._" Though her voice was low, almost spoken into her chest from trying to watch the steps and her footing, the tone spoke of exactly what she thought of them. "Where did they come from? And how does that creep know so much about—"

"You?"

Brigitte grimaced and Seth chuckled. "He is a creep, I'll give you that. Before I signed on for this job I thought he was trying to pick me up."

"Think a lot of yourself don't you."

"I don't have to tell you anything, bitch."

Brigitte bit her tongue and after a moment Seth continued. "If I hadn't _seen_what he was talking about, hadn't already know that fucking vampires existed and were making a great profit with sex and alcohol—"

"What?"

"But like you said, I only trust one person. Me." They had literally reached the ground floor, packed rock and sand showing up under the flashlight's yellow beam, travelling down one long enclosed brick hallway rather than opening up into a wide cellar like B had expected. It was freezing down here! Seth cursed under his breath, said something about shovels and sticking them up the Doctor's ass—all of which Brigitte heard—then moved inexorably forward. "You see something move, you get that skinny ass of yours back up those stairs. Anyways, so I ask him. . ."

(_"My interest started like most stories." Dr. Lector had brewed himself a cup of tea while Seth waited for coffee and a steak, the high inner walls of the secret British Museum blinding white and silver and chasing away all shadows. "I happened to meet a stranger in a strange land. Venice. Have you ever been, Mr. Gecko?"_

"Can't say that I have."

"Italy is such a lovely country. I wouldn't be incorrect in seeing an Italian heritage in your face." A tray was set on the table and Seth purposely picked up the serrated blade.

"Let's have less talk about me Doc, and a bit more about this so-called research you do here." The Doctor's smile was oily, and with those cold eyes on him Seth couldn't help the feeling of being flayed out, as if Lector was trying to mentally dissect him. He should have stared the older man down. But he turned to his meat instead.

"Of course. That temper must have served you well in your previous profession." There was a light clink of fine china to accompany the scrape of Seth's knife on the dishwasher safe plate. "As I was saying, I met a man. I always believed he was travelling in order to forget a woman—his daughter, a lover, it was never clear; he was very depressed you see, but philosophical, talking of universes to be found inside a physical form, of the nature of good and evil, and, as our conversations progressed, certain mythological creatures as well."

"Vampires ain't a myth," Seth chewed and spoke at the same time, getting the impression that the Doctor was amused by this breach of etiquette. Like a zookeeper with a chimpanzee. Fucking fag.

"But unlike myself, Mr Gecko, you have the astonishing advantage of personal experience in that particular debate." Lector sipped his tea. "Most mere mortals can only live on simple faith. Now as I was saying, this Englishman—a Rupert Giles, quite the ripper once he had a few drinks in him—spoke to me of vampires and werewolves, ectoplasmic visions and various beings of primitive lore. Not in the metaphorical sense I assure you, I am very intuitive to the use of metaphor—but rather this man fully believed these creatures to be, in one sense or the other, living entities in this world. Like many dabblers in the occult he had a library of books to assert his opinion, the most glorious collection of literature. Do you read, Mr. Gecko?"

"I can read."

"I didn't ask

can you,_ I asked _do you._" Seth sat back, running his tongue along his bottom teeth to stave off retaliation when every nerve was telling him to shove a fork into the smug prick's face, only to notice annoyance in Lector's expression for the first time. "Let me be clear: I do not appreciate being misunderstood."_)

"Fuck, that man can talk." They had reached the end of the of the hall, Seth's steps having slowed to the point that Brigitte simply leaned against the brick wall and gently tapped her filed fingernails over the ravaged stone. Nothing had climbed it's way out of the dirt so far. In B's experience it was only in movies that the boogeyman took this long to kill you. The door was less than two feet away and, unlike the rest of the crumbling manor, appeared strong and whole. No lock. No handle either. "You claustrophobic?" Brigitte rolled her eyes.

"So what happened to that Giles guy?"

"No fucking clue," Seth examined the archway leaving B in the pitch black, and, as with the door, it was solid hardwood but one could only imagine how thick. "Doc implied Giles' own people got rid of him but I don't think he gave two shits about that. It was the books he wanted, the information."

"Books?" Brigitte immediately cursed how interested she really sounded and the chuckle that meant the older man had heard it too. He was testing his foot against the jamb though and B only had a moment to cover her face before he was once again kicking in a door. "Christ, did you skip out on secret agent training? Because you suck at this covert operations shit!"

"Did I say you could speak, puppy?"

"I **do**have a gun." She knew she was being ignored when Seth automatically stepped into the small, silent, unadorned room.

"Ten minutes tops. I wanna get this bloodsucker and get the hell out."

Something about this Infiltration 101 didn't sit well with the werewolf. The house was as sinister as one could get but it had been someone's home, and if this. . ._vampire_had locked herself away, for whatever reason, who were they to disturb her? That is, if there was anything more than dust left.

**CRACK!**

Brigitte refused to admit she had jumped, but at least the lessons had sunk in and the gun was in her hand.

"What the hell was that?"

"A femur. I think."

B opened her mouth, closed it, then carefully put the gun away. He had found the bitch's bed. Now he had to clean it.

**3**

Brigitte and Charlie leaned against the wall, hanging back and watching. The medical laboratories in the labyrinthine underground of the British Museum were chilling in their simplicity. No crowded nooks or crannies; no galley tabletops covered in various medical odds and ends over which a maniacal scientist would crow; no polished steel constructions laid out for all and sundry in hopes of creating a fear induced sense of compliance: there was no clutter, just calm efficiency combined with several white-coat technicians who were far too quiet for the type of work expected of them. The only exception to these series of large, airy, brightly lit rooms was an observation room one had to pass before once again reaching the upper floors to bedrooms and recreations and the like. The fourth wall was of a substance akin to bullet proof glass, but which hummed with electricity and something more that sent B's teeth grinding—no door or window visible from which one would be able to reach the lone woman inside, although she saw and heard everything that crossed her path. (_"She's a natural witch," Charlie explained softly, smiling and raising a hand to the woman Brigitte figured could have been her mother's age. In conservative gingham with smooth facial features, Ms. White didn't respond, merely sat at her vanity brushing out thick handfuls of hair longer than any the werewolf had ever seen on a person in real life. "But it wasn't nurtured and something just snapped. She can't control it, whatever_ it_ is, poor woman. Apparently she's been like that since high school." Brigitte could relate. "This is one of her better days though. Last month she put a hole in the ceiling after her session with Frank." Frank Dux, a veritable legend in the martial arts world according to Kiddo—and Kung Fu master ghost according to Ash—spent several days a week in meditation with Carrie. When he wasn't chasing down demons in the South Pacific._)

To say Brigitte had an aversion to hospitals was an understatement, and Charlie was no better. She may be a pyrokinetic kidnapper but beggars couldn't be choosers when it came to female bonding, and given the redhead's background B was surprised that she would ever become involved in an organization such as the _League_. It could have been argued that Charlene 'Charlie' McGee was genetically engineered! Mutated by proxy! Orphaned by The Man!

"I hate needles," Brigitte murmured, hands deep in the pockets of her coat. "But I won't give up what's left of me." She felt Charlie's light shrug against her shoulder as they watched the six foot tank begin to fill with thick fresh blood, completely enveloping the skeletal remains of one Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker: typist, chemist, vampire. Dr. Lector presided over each step, having no need to consult notes as all necessary information had long been committed to memory. With the exception of one crushed tibia—(_"Neanderthal! Ape! This is what you do to spun glass? How you would treat a masterpiece!" "I brought you a fucking bag of bones, what more do you want?" "This could jeopardize her resurrection!" "If Vampire Jesus can't cope with a broken leg it's time to start looking for a new deity, Doc. It belongs in the ground just like every other bloodsucker." "Unlike your brother Mrs. Harker is not a random parasite; however, it must be thrilling for you to make such God-like declamations at this point in your existence. Your services are no longer required for this part of our operation, Mr. Gecko." "I think I'll stick around to say I told you so, motherfucker. Just in case that angel decides to tear your Goddamn throat out."_)—the specimen was in a near perfect state, especially given it's years of obscurity in that dilapidated Regency cellar.

"I never wanted to hurt anyone. But not everybody feels the same way."

There was a whirring sound as half a dozen sterling silver rods were lowered into the viscous liquid, heat emanating, and, unless B was mistaken, slowly bringing the blood to a boil. . .No. Not heat. The rods were sending miniscule threads of electricity swimming through the red fluid, the practically neon blue light creating an eerie purple cast, distorting the tank enclosure until it seemed as if a mass of swaying seaweed rested on the bottom and not the skeleton of a centuries old vampire. She bit her tongue as the light flickered in Lector's tiny bifocals; they gave him the look of a man meant to spend his time pinning the dead wings of butterflies, shoulders hunched over a dimly lit desk. The Doctor was old but he walked with more than enough clarity of purpose that Brigitte had to snidely wonder who really had the God complex here.

"What does he get from this?" she glanced at Charlie from the corner of her eye, wondering if the woman would fill her in on the finer points. "There has to be a reason I just added 'grave robber' to my rap sheet. Why is a _vampire_suddenly so all-important? I mean, if I had made any fight back home, you would have put a bullet in my head."

"That wasn't home Brigitte," the Doctor drawled from his place beside the tank, writing down observations in an elegant script rather than jot notes in shorthand. "That was a series of boards poorly nailed together, stained with the blood of your victims and the scent of stale defeat." He passed the folder to a stony-faced lackey and turned towards her with the barest hint of a smile just as B felt all her facial muscles drop. She didn't feel Charlie tense beside her, or see Seth, from his side of the room, casually put down the beer he had been sucking on all evening. The slayer may have been understandably riled at Lector's attitude, but disgruntled drunk was a façade he knew well: he wasn't going to let either the vampire _or_the werewolf run amok on his territory. It was all lost on Brigitte who only saw another stranger prying the pages of her life apart—a life that had not been her own since that terrifying day when she mixed her sister's infected blood with her own.

And wow, did that piss her off. "Your home was an insignificant suburban dwelling full of marital discontent, feebly derived adolescent angst, and terribly uncreative photography."

"And what does that matter to you?"

Gallingly, his smile relaxed.

"I assure you Brigitte, my only concern is for the integrity of our little family. You and I both recognize the importance of such a firm foundation. Of honesty between children and parents. Siblings." Charlie made contact, touching Brigitte's coat sleeve which the brunette roughly shrugged off without a glance, a sound that could only be called a low growl vibrating from her throat. Seth's gun was in his hand before anyone had even noticed him reaching, but the old bastard was immensely pleased and Lector returned to watch the charges circulating through the rods increase. Little blips and bobs and the crackle of electricity; ripples in the blood and a swirling movement that recalled actions better left forgotten: again, her teeth hurt. This wasn't right; this was cruel. B had called this creature such awful things in her head, this woman, this body, locked up and alone. This League had ripped the vampire from captivity and now Lector was trying to shred her emotions in front of these strangers.

Fuck. Emotional. Sentimentality. Deep-seeded analytical thought and subconscious psychosis. FUCKING ASSHOLES COULDN'T JUST LEAVE HER ALONE-!

_"You're cracking up, B."_

Brigitte tamped down on every instinct that roared for her to jerk away from Charlie. Not that it was the round-cheeked older woman that she saw currently in her minds eye, but rather a redhead considerably younger with a sneer sharp enough to cut all the walls Brigitte had erected over the past twenty years. Although B couldn't remember Ginger ever wearing a floor length black velvet dress. The words were pulled like cotton nodules from Brigitte's mouth.

"Don't. Touch. Me."

The heavy mood was broken by a sudden pop, a crack—louder than a gun shot or Seth's clumsy step or Ash's incessant tapping on a van window—and the tank itself began to shake, calling all white coats to gather around their stations and Dr. Lector to stare with rapturous smugness. Brigitte was caught like all the rest, moving forward towards the convulsing purple glow, rage transformed into perverse curiosity despite her internal arguments over the very real act of stealing a Goddamn _skeleton_. It had been a long time since Brigitte herself was not the metaphorical car crash.

"Remove the rods," Lector demanded. "Up! Up!"

Instantaneously, as the silver had cleared the thickening soup of carnage, there was a truly grotesque sound of sucking. It prompted Brigitte to think of bone marrow, of sounds in the dark left in the dark, of warm hearts in a fist covered with fur and vengeance. Charlie raised a hand to her mouth and quickly turned away, moving back to her place along the wall; Seth watched, looking like a man who had just smelled something putrid, but still unwilling to let go of his pride—and the hope that Lector was batshit crazy; the Doctor stood sentinel, betraying his age with his youthful eyes while the level of blood inside the tank steadily dropped, streaks of red fading on the transparent material.

"Did you take this out of Frankenstein's diary?" Brigitte asked with an edge as the bones were finally revealed, stained crimson. Seth cursed and kept cursing while sinew and veins, layer after layer of muscle, spread like magic over ribs and pelvis, spine and healed leg.

"That and a vodoun spell or two," Dr. Lector didn't look at her either. "Intent is a powerful force, my dear. Keep that in mind when considering your own hypothetical limitations." Eyes appeared, eyelids, a nose, and then like a flowing sheet rich mahogany tresses erupted from the scalp, crowding an attractive face (Brigitte supposed). Redheads. More with the redheads. Christ, what was wrong with good, decent chestnut curl—Forget it. All women were cursed in one way or another.

Fuuuuuuck," Seth drew out the swear, gun replaced in it's holster and hands dumb at his sides. "Look at those tits"

Yeah. Cursed.

**4**

She looked down at her long fingers with what she knew would have appeared as detachment if the redhead hadn't been standing sentinel in front of the antique cheval glass for over an hour. Her previous existence had admittedly been one of denying her emotions so personal skill was not in question; a hand was a hand, an arm an arm, the face that reflected back her own face. Unfortunately, the gentleman who had been watching _her_the entire time, (silver-haired and far too pleased with himself if she was any judge of character), periodically sipping his fragrant tea, was not at all fooled by this façade. This little library of his was startlingly familiar, the furniture old and unobtrusive like the pedestal table on which his teacup and saucer rested. She did not appreciate his discerning eye—as if she should possibly be turning to him for guidance and assurance? As if he was her equal?

"You are fascinating."

His voice was cultured and precise and it had been the first she had heard upon awaking, a gleam of Creation about his countenance. She wore the clothing he had provided; she had listened to the information he gave.

Mina Harker slowly turned from the mirror to face Doctor Hannibal Lector.

"Am I."

"I don't dare patronize your intelligence by waxing poetic on your beauty, Wilhelmina," he began, calmly removing his glasses. "You have little in the traditional sense—of your species or peers—and it's by far the least fascinating of your aspects."

"Really. Why am I fascinating, Doctor?"

"You knew nothing, felt nothing, as you slowly turned to dust in that mausoleum in Derbyshire. Truth?" Mina gave an inclination of her chin. It had been as she had always expected, always hoped, an age of nothingness—no, even more than that. Endless. "There was no bright light for you, Wilhelmina. No happy ever after, no kingdom in the clouds." He stood and approached her without fear. "And through the power of science, man's domination of the elements, you have been brought back from bone and ashes. You, my dear, are the closest proof the common masses have ever had that God does not exist."

Mina's heavy-lidded gaze continued to regard Lector with mild interest. The black linen that draped her legs was durable but made for easy movement. The white blouse she supposed seemed odd. . .with all her. . .hair. . .laying so heavy around her shoulders. Why had she been brought back to this? Against her last will and testament? Against every order lain down to the League to leave her remains and the stake that pierced her chest untouched? To forget that Wilhelmina Harker had ever walked the earth?

"I'm thirsty."

"Please." He tilted his chin. "Help yourself."

Brigitte gasped as she awoke, no time between the strange sleeping world she had just left and the acceptance of cold water currently rolling down her sharp cheekbones, matting her hair and soaking her collar. She blinked owlishly, quickly registering she was prone on the laboratory floor while Seth regarded her with bristling annoyance from above. "Oh. She's awake." The slayer handed an empty glass to Charlie, who then placed it on the counter and knelt to give Brigitte a sympathetic smile that was nonetheless tinged with anxiety. Even if Brigitte hadn't been able to see it, she could smell it. And it wasn't just coming from Charlie either. She was having a difficult time recalling what had just happened: Lector acting the part of deranged scientist; a light show to rival any New Year's Eve fireworks display; a malformed creature rising from the depths. The redhead's concerned comments assured Brigitte yes, that had all occurred. But she was still moving through the visions of her dreams, images of another time that had hit hard and felt as real as this waking reality.

"We wondered if you had had a reaction to all that. . ._that._" The older woman shrugged impotently, offering Brigitte a hand up which was accepted. Using the back of her sleeve Brigitte wiped the tap water off her face, pushed her hair back in a damp lump. "None of us are exactly experts on werewolves. We didn't know if the electricity had—"

"If it had sent your inner dog runnin' with it's tail between it's legs."

"Go fuck yourself," Brigitte glared at Seth who wasn't looking at her at all but rather down the corridor that would lead them up to the Museum's other levels. One calloused hand was clasping and re-clasping his gun, the weapon no longer holstered or held at attention but rather hanging limp at Gecko's side. His leather appearance was agitated and pissed but she supposed that wasn't anything new. Ash was nowhere to be seen and only a skeleton crew of lab lackey's remained to clean up Lector's mess. Had he. . .had he succeeded? The tank was dismantled. There was no body, no hodge-podge of bones or mutated mystical flesh. Brigitte's stomach rolled as a particular half-nightmare rose to the surface, partly animated limbs and giant howling wolves crashing together in a bloody conflagration, the walls of an ancient castle burning around them while Brigitte's own voice joined in the fray. She had been tracking someone or something, instincts on alert as scent after scent assaulted her. But not the right scent. Not _his_scent.

"Are you sure you're ok?" Charlie's voice interrupted, jolting B out of what could quickly become a fantasy sequence if she didn't smarten up. As much as the Canadian would have loved to visit, she'd never been in an actually castle before in her life, let alone be crazy enough to surrounded herself with other monsters or hunt down some guy in the middle of so much destruction. She may have been slowing killing herself for years but at least it was entirely on her terms. "You hit the floor pretty hard, may have had a seizure."

"She's talkin' and walkin' and we need to get upstairs," Seth rubbed his chin and gestured down the hall, not waiting for either woman to respond as he assumed (correctly it turned out) that both were going to follow. "No one asked you to wait," Brigitte replied, purposely ignoring the wretched woman behind the see-through wall and the friendly wave that Charlie offered as the three of them walked by. What kind of life was that?

"Guess I'm just like Chuck Norris."

"Who?"

"She was pretty," Charlie opted for conversation to drown out Seth's cursing, the elevator doors shutting them in a shiny metal box. "I don't know if she's in any of the paintings though."

"The vampire?" B was too confused to feign indifference at this point. "What paintings?"

"There's a gallery in the older part of the Museum," Charlie explained. "I've only been there once, it's kinda creepy actually. But the League likes it's portraits. Used to at any rate. There are paintings that go back to the seventeen, eighteen hundreds, I'm sure."

"Red, what makes you think this bloodsucker was a part of the League?" Brigitte noticed Charlie bristle, but at Seth's supplied moniker or his presence in such close quarters who could say.

"Just a thought," she replied with an edge of frost, though the flash in the woman's eyes was definitely more of the white-hot anger kind. "Lector's gone this far to find her—the expense alone must be astronomical—"

"You know that word Puppy?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"—and to do it all within League headquarters? If she was your average _bloodsucker_than wouldn't it be crazy to give her access to so much information? There has to be a deeper connection."

"If she was your average bloodsucker," Seth leaned against one shiny wall, eyes glued to the escalating numbers above the double doors, "we wouldn't be worryin' about her bein' a fuckin' spy, just how long before you two are laying in a heap with your throats ripped open." Brigitte snorted with some bemusement while Charlie looked at Seth slightly aghast.

"Thanks for the team spirit there, Seth."

"Lector's out of his mind. All bloodsuckers are the same."

"Does that hold true for zom**Hey!**" Brigitte slapped Charlie's incoming hand away before it could land over her mouth. Hadn't these bastards realized yet that she didn't like to be touched? "We 're not friends. You dragged me into this shit against my will. And furthermore, unless he's hiding in the panel box, Shaun's nowhere to hear, so I can say 'zombies' as much as I want." The second it was passed her lips B was hit with a full-on vision of herself being torn in half by the walking dead; she shivered and folded her arms tightly once more. Yeah, the next thing she should do is go into a darkened room to investigate the weird sounds the cat must be making. With her luck it would be five hundred pounds of the canine variety. Fucking great. _This isn't a movie and you aren't a helpless virgin._

The elevator stopped, the doors opening to reveal a dishevelled Ash standing in the bright hall, the muscular annoyance appearing to have difficulty keeping his lunch down.

"What the fuck's the matter with you?" Seth barked, once again forcing everyone to follow him if they wanted any information whatsoever. Brigitte wanted a shower and some goddamn privacy but she supposed seeing what had these jerk-offs in a twist would have to suffice. "I thought I told you to keep an eye on that vamp"

"Oh I got an eyeful alright," Ash's comeback was quick and decisive, his chin jutting out as disgust rolled over his face. "Everything was quiet until Dr. Lector started making these fucked up sounds, and when I stepped in to have a look-see Elvira was just finishing her liquid breakfast and the Doc—"

"Elvira wasn't a vampire," B murmured, rolling her eyes. Morons.

"Seemed way too satisfied for a man that age who isn't popping back Viagra like candy."

"No, no, no, no, no," Seth shook his head. "If you're suggesting that 'Lector' and 'erection' belong in the same sentence, I swear to God I will put a bullet in your skull."


End file.
